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2015 A.D.
31
Jul
The Higher Truth
Written by RJ Vigoda

What are the limits of scholarly study in the search for spiritual truth?

"We are not looking for a reality without as much as one within."

— Augustine

About thirty five years ago I began paying wary attention to my mystical intuitions. Unlike some, this subtle shift in awareness wasn’t the product of any life shattering experience or profound revelation. It was more an abstract acknowledgement that maybe there was something out of the ordinary to those deep intuitions and odd events occasionally punctuating my thoughts and experience; something suggesting the possibility of hidden forces or some kind of spiritual dimension to my existence. By nature a rigid empiricist I was convinced there was a sensible explanation for these rogue impressions. I subsequently began a casual pursuit of trying to link spiritual and mystical phenomena to science and reason. However, during the process something unexpected happened.

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Last Updated on Sunday, 27 May 2018 12:33
2014 A.D.
25
Jul
A Weekend With The Shaman
Written by RJ Vigoda

Classical shamanic practice has generated a renewed and widespread sense of interest within modern spiritual seekers. At issue is how well traditional shamanic concepts and techniques transfer to the denizens of contemporary societies. Can a practice considered by many to be an archaic remnant of earlier cultural thought worlds square with our current scientific and philosophical perspectives of existence? A weekend seminar sponsored by one of the anthropological fields leading authorities on shamanism may hold some revealing insights into these issues.

Michael Harner is an anthropologist and one of the world’s leading authorities on shamanism. Many consider shamanism an archaic and superstitious remnant of primitive and traditional cultures. However, broader awareness of individual claims of spiritual experience and a wider recognition of unseen forces by the physical sciences has rejuvenated contemporary interest in shamanic practice.

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Last Updated on Friday, 25 July 2014 12:25
2014 A.D.
17
Jun
A Profound Synchronicity?
Written by RJ Vigoda

The Problem Of Higher Meaning Within Personal And Subjective Experience

As originally published in the Journal of Exceptional Experience and Psychology Vol. 1 No 2.

ABSTRACT

The study of transcendent phenomena frequently relies on the use of the personal and subjective experiences of individual informants. A recent personal synchronistic episode serves as the impetus to reevaluate the viability of such experience as a source of evidence within our study of paranormal and mystical/spiritual phenomena. Questions of personal credibility are traditionally the greatest concern when assessing the veracity of individual experience. However, it’s the meanings we assign such events that likely breed the greater apprehension and frequently taint otherwise credible reports. Mystical/spiritual interpretations are particularly problematic. By examining the terms and reasoning often employed to determine the meaning of transcendent experience we may be better placed to accurately assess the authenticity of these episodes. Through the process we may better determine if individual experience is capable of any epistemic or ontological value.

Introduction

I recently experienced a powerful synchronicity that forced me to confront two of the major problems associated with the study of transcendent phenomena: veracity and meaning. For some time I’ve found myself intellectually amenable to the notion of an ultimate consciousness underlying existence.

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Last Updated on Sunday, 12 March 2017 08:52
2012 A.D.
28
Sep
The Morality Of God
Written by RJ Vigoda

In Search Of An Ultimate Ethos

With each passing year science and philosophy continue to offer more rational and persuasive explanations suggesting the original force from which all existence springs may contain a distinctive intelligence. Those who’ve never doubted the existence of such a creative, thinking ultimate power have traditionally assigned such an entity a wide variety of different names.  The theistically inclined freely use the word “God” to personify this cognitive cosmic source.  Those more circumspect favor such titles as Initial Being, Ground of Being, Cosmic Awareness, Ultimate Intelligence, Essential Consciousness, The One, The All or dozens of other cautiously crafted appellations.  By any other name, the attributes we ascribe such a force show a predictable similarity.  For most, such an entity would be imbued with three core attributes: initial creative power, Ultimate intelligence and moral authority. While the implications of the existence of any of the above characteristics are unfathomably significant, we mere humans seem particularly obsessed with the morality issue.

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Last Updated on Sunday, 12 March 2017 08:55
2012 A.D.
19
Jun
Perils Of The Examined Life
Written by RJ Vigoda

The Neoplatonist Dilemma

Any inclined to study the nature of being best heed the following advice: don’t go shopping for Ultimate truth unless you’re damn well ready for the consequences.  Such words may seem harsh but experience suggests they’re true.  Contrary to what many may think, gaining a better sense of one’s place in the grand scheme frequently depresses rather than ennobles.  Nowhere is this bitter quandary more evident than within the study of Neoplatonism.  Though long considered one of the cornerstones of mystical theory, Neoplatonism often stimulates an all too familiar pathology; desperate souls searching for existential meaning find themselves cast into the nihilistic void of personal absurdity.  Their new found ontological insights offer very little in the way of individual purpose or ethical direction.  Sometimes it gets worse. 

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Last Updated on Sunday, 5 January 2014 09:35
2012 A.D.
10
Apr
Circular Reasoning
Written by RJ Vigoda
Barbury Castle Crop Circles

Assessing The Mystery of Crop Circles

Significant existential insights usually come in small and discreet forms. The novelties within the movement of sub-atomic particles, the existence of DNA or the faint signal of some distant cosmological process are so subtle as to be undetectable through ordinary sensation. Rarely is the perception of our being radically challenged by the sudden appearance of unknown phenomena of massive proportion. However unlikely, many believe precisely such a process is occurring throughout the farmlands and pastures of our planet. They claim profound messages from an undetermined source are being encrypted within the sprawling geometric patterns and pictograms found in crop circles. Long a subject of curiosity, there’s no denying the intricacy and elegance of the circle patterns arouses a sense of the mystical within the minds of human observers. But there’s more. For many, the geometry of the circles seems to stimulate a psychological resonance of a deeper recognition — something expanding the boundaries of who and what we are, something integrating us within a higher field of being. It’s easy to understand why many feel the circles to be the work of forces outside the mundane.

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Last Updated on Friday, 5 April 2019 05:55
2012 A.D.
24
Feb
Manikarnika
Written by RJ Vigoda
ManikarnikaGhat from the Ganges. The terraced buildings to the left and center are pilgrim sheds. The domed temple to the right, now abandoned, was built in the 18th century by Queen Ahalya Bai Holkar of Indore

ManikarnikaGhat from the Ganges. The terraced buildings to the left and center are pilgrim sheds. The domed temple to the right, now abandoned, was built in the 18th century by Queen Ahalya Bai Holkar of Indore

It’s always six o’clock at Manikarnika.  Squinting through the thick smoke of incinerating bodies, one can see the clock atop the decrepit Birla pilgrim shed which hasn’t moved in living memory.  Shrouded in perpetual twilight, legend states here, at this most holy of Hindu sites on the banks of the Ganges, time never runs down but instead stands still.  And so it does.  Precariously rooted in the ashes of thousands of bodies burned over thousands of years, the site is reverently known as the “cradle of Vishnu.”  Its origins, rumored to extend back to the beginning of creation, serve as a gruesome yet persistent reminder of life’s trembling fragility and temporary essence.  Here within the ancient sacred city of Varanasi, multitudes of the Hindu pious have for millennium brought their dead to this auspicious place for cremation and ultimately their final journey from this world.  Their presence and force is palpably felt within the all enveloping spectral haze.  It is a place of great severity and immense profundity.

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Tags: , ,   |  Posted under Cultural Practice, NewsFlash, Religion, Rituals  |  Comments  3 Comments
Last Updated on Sunday, 5 January 2014 09:33
2012 A.D.
18
Jan
Star Crossed
Written by RJ Vigoda

Evaluating “Cosmos And Psyche” And Archetypal Cosmology

Richard Tarnas and I share a common pursuit.  We’re both seeking order and meaning within what we believe to be a purposefully intelligent and profound universe.  We’re looking for confirmation of what we sense to be true, what in the core of our souls we know to be true; that the cosmos is a living whole informed by a creative intelligence to which humans are intimately connected and actively interrelate.  Unfortunately, to those whose sensibilities fail to similarly resonate, the idea of an intelligent, meaningful and interconnected cosmos is a tough sell.  This is understandable.  The mindset of the modern age remains firmly rooted in the power and persuasion of science and its empirical and mechanistic approach to knowledge.  Any concept of intrinsic cosmic meaning (save that which we humans impose on reality) seems absurd.  Science’s assertion that we live in a universe of random, chaotic and ultimately impersonal forces has rarely been challenged in a deliberate and systematic manner. 

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Last Updated on Sunday, 12 March 2017 08:58
2011 A.D.
01
Nov
My Friend The Witch Doctor
Written by RJ Vigoda
Animal skulls at the Lome fetish market

Animal skulls at the Lome fetish market

Animist Practice In Yorubaland

In many societies there exists an ever widening chasm between the ideals of their mythological heritage and the activities of ordinary life.  It often seems with every new nugget of information and technological innovation the relevance of cultural myths and legends as templates of practical action in daily existence recedes.  Their pragmatic authority marginalized, traditional mythology tenuously survives as an existential metaphor of the higher, more abstract ideals of existence as yet not fully explained by contemporary knowledge.  Societies continuing to live in accord with these “archaic,” metaphysical notions are widely considered to be uneducated, superstitious throwbacks destined to eventual doom by their lack of modern awareness.   Possibly the most conspicuous examples of such retrograde behavior lies with cultures who believe in the active, unseen role of spirits; those referred to as “animists.”  However, closer examination of the nature of animism suggests modern judgments may be in need of modification.  Could animist belief and ritual reflect a deeper more accurate ontological understanding than many realize?   Is it possible in many ways the advancements of science are leading us back to the essential truths of our distant mythological past?  The traditional Yoruban cosmology of western Africa may be a relevant case in point.

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Last Updated on Sunday, 5 January 2014 09:39
2011 A.D.
16
Aug
Reorienting Expectation: The Changing Locus Of Spirituality
Written by RJ Vigoda

It’s often assumed those living in more traditional cultures have a greater degree of metaphysical awareness and lead more spiritually oriented lives than their modern counterparts.   To varying degrees virtually all who study Transpersonal Anthropology harbor this essential bias.  Many claim traditional living provides surroundings and conditions more conducive to recognizing the greater, more essential spiritual truths of human existence.   They expect the inhabitants of these favored cultures to be more receptive to metaphysical and psychic phenomena and live in greater communion with the fundamental forces of being than those of contemporary societies.  It’s an easy assumption to make.   Modern peoples are frequently perceived as spiritually compromised owing to their isolation from nature, materialistic priorities and their slavish devotion to the soul stifling positivist paradigm which devalues the power and influence of the mystical and transcendent.  These assumptions may create a perplexing situation for those interested in transpersonal or psychic studies as they frequently fail to square with observable reality. 

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Last Updated on Sunday, 26 February 2017 10:11
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